Tablets, tablets and more tablets

It's hard to believe how the market has changed over the past few years as it relates to tablets. I took a quick glance at a couple of technology web sites and felt compelled to at least give a mention to quite a few tablet devices that are either on the market or coming soon. This isn't meant to endorse or criticize any product, but I do hope that you'll do your best to encourage users to answer some critical questions (such as what they want to do with the device) as you are asked about which one is the best one, etc.

iPad2 - Apple's offering, which is clearly the market leader and has the most acclaim. Runs their iOS, has a 9.7" screen, front- and rear-facing cameras and has the iTunes store and their apps behind it. Touts a 10-hour battery life. $499 price point for the 16GB WiFi model.

Galaxy Tab - Samsung's offering, which gets some good reviews and runs the Android OS. Android = Flash, which is important to some. Has a USB connection kit to give you access to a thumb drive. 10.1" screen, two cameras, apps via Android Market. $499 price point for 16GB WiFi model. I couldn't find much on battery life, though I read one review that guessed at the 6-7 hour range.

Xoom - Motorola's offering. It runs Android and says it's now upgradeable to 3.1 version. 10.1" display. Front and rear cameras. USB port. They tout a battery life of approximately 10 hours. $599 price point for 32GB WiFi.

Iconia Tab A500 - An Acer offering. 10.1" display, runs Android 3.0, has both cameras and a USB port. "Up to 8 hours" on battery life. $449 price point for 16GB WiFi.

TouchPad - An HP offering. Not on the market yet, but you can pre-order. Runs webOS, which I'll link their description to because I admittedly don't know that much about it. I've read that it 'refines' multitasking and a few reviews say it's very intuitive. 9.7" screen. Front-facing camera. USB port. $499 price point for 16GB WiFi. Pair it with the right HP phone and you can answer calls from it.

Blackberry Playbook - RIM's offering. It's running the Blackberry Tablet OS. 7" screen, up to 10 hours of battery life. Connect wirelessly to your Blackberry phone and access its email, calendar, etc. Dual video cameras. $499 price point for 16GB WiFi.

How exhausting! There are others like the HTC Flyer and the Toshiba Thrive, but you get the idea. They're everywhere and there's much more to it than simply picking one off the shelf and forking out some cash. There are subtle differences covered here and in the general look and feel, ease of use, etc. Please... ask yourself what you want to accomplish before choosing the device that's best for you.

TDMoIP

Our tech world is full of acronyms. The title of this post is an acronym that you may already be familiar with. Depending on your telecommunications infrastructure and future plans, you may want to become familiar with it if you are not already.

TDMoIP stands for time-division multiplexing over IP. I don't want to cross everyone's eyes with a detailed description of time-division multiplexing. Let's be honest - I'd be regurgitating something I've read anyway. Suffice to say that TDM is how your phone conversations are carried over the public switched telephone network (PSTN). Voice traffic is transferred to channels and passed across the PSTN and the same concept is used to take voice traffic on some school district networks and pass it across some channels of a T1 telephone circuit (or something similar). Configuring hardware for TDM networks (think CSU/DSUs and the like) always involved settings for the type of encoding, clocking and presetting certain channels of the circuit for the type of communication desired.

Fast-forward to today, where many schools districts have installed fiber-optic high-speed connections for their networks. These faster links replaced those legacy T1 (or 56K?) data circuits and we were passing data between sites at faster rates than ever before. That's great for data, but what about the voice traffic and those channels on the T1s?

Some simply left the T1 infrastructure in place to handle voice traffic. Some were convinced that voice over IP (VoIP) was the way to go and may have replaced handsets and phone system components with a system that truly handled IP connectivihttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifty end-to-end. The problem with some of our districts is that huge investments were made in the original phone systems and the price and feature sets of a VoIP system are beyond the budgets and desires of the school district. However, paying for a data infrastructure as well as the existing T1-based voice pipeline isn't an acceptable option either. This is where TDMoIP may be the answer.

As you may know or could certainly guess, there is technology available that allows you to continue to utilize a 'legacy' phone system (which uses TDM technology) to transmit voice traffic over an IP-based network. I'll link one category of products made by RADirect. I think there are other companies that make this type of product, but I've seen a few districts use this company's product in the past. Voice traffic and data traffic are completely different and have different requirements for quality of service, timing of the traffic, keeping packets synchronized, etc. If part of a web page doesn't load, that packet gets sent again. If it doesn't arrive in exact order, the end result still looks the same and the page gets rendered very quickly regardless. If you miss packets of a voice conversation or traffic isn't received in an orderly and timely fashion, calls are lost or garbled. I won't belabor the point and will assume that you have some idea why this sort of equipment is needed.

The amount and type of gear you need will vary based on many local factors, but I wanted to take a minute to point out that this can be done and is being done to extend the life of your existing PBX-based phone system and take full advantage of your high-speed data network without dealing with the redundancy of an additional infrastructure left in place for only voice traffic. Take care.
[Image: Library of Congress]

Thinking Outside the Box

I suppose it's helpful to occasionally have your paradigms challenged. In that spirit, I would submit this Forbes blog from several months ago that discusses the CIO role being 'under fire.' There are several good points brought up in the posting and I thought I'd mention a few and tie them to thoughts I'm having... I know, dangerous, right?

* Consumer technology "out-innovating" enterprise technology - This has become increasingly evident in the adoption of smartphones and consumer-designed tablet-style devices. No brand names mentioned, nor do they need to be. For that matter, students and staff are no longer impressed with that full-featured desktop or laptop computer. They go to any electronics store and get technology thahttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gift has comparable specifications or, at minimum, can do what they want to do.

* Technology is advancing faster than we can adopt it - We've mounted projectors and televisions in classroom, installed document cameras, installed wireless infrastructure and made other countless investments. Some, like structured cabling, could definitely be considered a long-term investment. Others... like the A/B/G wireless we had to have, is quickly replaced with N-series wireless and, soon enough, will be replaced with gigabit or multi-gigabit WiFi.

* Several shifts in thinking need to occur - Rattling through them quickly... the pace of change is accelerating. That means that expectations need to change. Lengthy technology plans are disrupted by this change. Replacing technology simply because it's dated may not be the smart move.

The success criteria should be the business value and not the adoption rate. We've fought for years to make sure that every classroom has the same tools, every teacher is trained to the same level and that we're all moving in lock-step in the same direction. Yet we teach to students of different ages about any number of different subjects and interests. Is the 'business value' the same in the high school history class as it is in a primary-grade class? Probably not, but the technology is often similar for both rooms.

We should try to move technology acquisitions from capex to opex. Some have done this via leasing of hardware and infrastructure. For districts that have convinced their boards to do this, things have seemingly gone well. The infrastructure does not have the glitz of the user device and is often tougher to get funded. Infrastructure purchases should perhaps be thought of like a utility and paid for in that fashion.

* "Learn to fail fast and move on" - Good quote from that blog post. One of our biggest struggles is to evaluate the success of an initiative. Often, we're asked to move on to the next project without really evaluating the previous one. That said, though, the changing technology landscape is forcing us to be willing to try different things. That will be an adjustment, but an equally difficult adjustment will be the discipline to jettison an initiative as it is made irrelevant by little business impact.

Things Seem Slow... Back to Basics on Troubleshooting

With school out for a brief time, I've talked to several districts about various projects and have found more than one that has had concerns about network speed and throughput. Any 'tech at heart' loves this type of challenge, though getting to the bottom of the issue(s) can be a frustrating process. Perhaps for my own benefit as much as anyone else's, I am typing random thoughts and suggestions in the event that you're working through problems of a similar nature.

Get a baseline - On some of our networks, this is a challenge. For now, let's just assume that "the Internet is slow" is the gist of your issue. You need to have a feel for what the normal browsing experience should be in your environment. You need to know the bandwidth capacity of your outgoing circuit(s). You need to be aware of the network routes and devices that are traversed as Internet traffic leaves the workstation and makes its way to the Internet. Are you wireless or wired? Are you passing through gigabit ports, slower wired ports, N-series wireless versus B/G or B? Do you pass through Internet filtering solution(s)? All of this needs to be determined and you can take a few samples of Internet browsing from the problem stations or stations in a similar configuration.

Know your 'best case scenario' - When I'm helping a district with thhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifis issue, it's nice to be able to set a station to bypass any Internet filter and to connect via wire to a point as close to your Internet connection as possible. If you can take quite a few hops and devices out of the loop, you can then determine if the speed issue is related to the devices you manage or if you have a larger problem with your provider.

Pick a few reliable sites/tools and stick with them - Often, I'll browse to a news site as a test since several images, ads and banners need to load. I also use sites like Speedtest.net to get an actual bandwidth readout. Note, though, that the figures you see here can vary based on several factors, including other traffic on your own network, delays or capacity issues on the testing site's end, etc. That said, if you run a test several times from the same facility, it may give you a general idea of what throughput can be expected.

Make sure you know what you're troubleshooting - I'm writing this from the perspective of Internet access being slow. Sometimes, the user may be reporting slow Internet from their workstation that has problems like malware, limited hardware capacity or poor connectivity. Veterans of the industry can tell you that it could be any number of other problems when someone simply says that 'things are slow'. It could be one particular program that they use. They could be clicking the wrong icon. If you're chasing your tail, have the user show you their problem or perhaps at least get a screen capture of an error message. Basic stuff, I know, but how many times have technicians rushed to the super-technical layer of troubleshooting only to find that a patch cable was removed?

Know your own environment as best you can - This is a challenge if you're working with limited staff as many school district tech departments often are. Suppose that your speed issue is definitely related to your Internet filter. Do you have a support relationship with the vendor? Is there someone you can leanhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif on for suggestions or other support? Do you have a firm grasp of how the users authenticate and are processed by this device? Is there an alternate configuration that might increase speed? (I mention this because many of these devices have different installation methods that can offer better throughput, better security or other enhanced capabilities.)

Can you look at the traffic - I'll end this post on a topic that isn't basic at all, but it can be an option. A network protocol analyzer like Wireshark can be used (with appropriate port mirroring) to capture traffic on a portion of your network. I'm not an advanced user of this type of tool, but the capabilities are getting better and you may simply need to confirm if traffic is ever leaving the network or if it's entering the network in a timely fashion. Without being an expert, seeing timestamps on network packets might help you determine where a delay could be.

The ramblings will continue at a later time... take care!
[image:Library of Congress]

Can you successfully share an iPad?

My parents have a vicious Dachshund that will chew appendages off of toy geese with embedded squeakers. This has nothing to do with this blog post, but this should be noted nonetheless.

I thought I'd put an item on the blog that I've been passing around via email this morning with several other leaders in the K-12 tech community, including Marty, John and John David. There has been much discussion about the adoption of the iPad recently and it presents challenges for the K12 technology leader. For all of the wonders of the touch interface, cameras in each direction and the amazing applications that developers are creating every day, the fact remains that this device is less enterprise-friendly than it is consumer-friendly. I'll paste in one portion of an email I shared today. It details one challenge that several districts are dealing with. I welcome any input into the best way to work through this dilemma:

Here’s the issue on my mind at the moment... If the iPad isn’t dedicated to one particular student (e.g. cart-based environment), how will the student best be able to transfer created content to the teacher? Here are a few things that have been suggested, along with the challenges:

• Dropbox – This could work well in a dedicated environment, but I’ve been told that you can’t easily (if at all) log out of Dropbox once the app connection is established. If you can’t log in and log out, that hinders the creation of a student-specific Dropbox and you’ll face issues with shared boxes that could lead to unauthorized viewing, creation or deletion of student work.

• Email via profile – This is another option in a dedicated environment, but will be a challenge if different students have the iPad from one period to the next. Continually deleting and recreating a mail profile doesn’t seem like a good option.

• Email via OWA – Multiple people have told me that you cannot send attachment via OWA if connected from the iPad Safari browser.

Are there other ways to do this? I’ll share one suggestion I received from our Naperville contact and one potential option that I was reading about yesterday.

• Email via ‘generic’ account – You could set up a generic account for the iPad and use it to email assignments to the student’s account and/or the teacher’s account. There are some instructional hurdles here as well, but it’s an option that @JDSCIO said they had been trying recently. Could a student access another student’s work via the ‘sent items’ in that email profile? Could that account be used to send objectionable emails? Perhaps in each case, but it is at least an option worth considering.

• Moodle and/or mBook app – I haven’t yet checked to see if this solution would allow for better logging in and out. I haven’t tested the mBook app for its feature set. I simply wanted to point out that there is a $3.99 app called mBook that is supposed to bring Moodle features to the iPad. Of course, if you aren’t using Moodle, that means that there’s an entire course management system to get installed and implemented. Moodle’s course structure might be a good way to transfer assignments, though, and that could become a standard that would be used whether or not iPads were the device of choice.

We've had some great follow-up on this topic, with Marty noting the fact that we really need to avoid the concept of "files" needing to be transferred at all. If teachers are after the students' ideas and content, are there web-based ways of capturing that? Comments on blog entries, online forms, course management systems and similar technologies are available.

It's an interesting topic and a challenge for all of us, so feel free to offer input and I'll try to follow up as solutions are attempted and evaluated.